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Champagne flute
Champagne coupe

Champagne stemware refers to the flute and coupe stemware used in the enjoyment of champagne, other sparkling wines, and certain beers. Champagne may also be served in a white wine glass with a tulip shape.^[1]

Contents 1 Champagne flute 2 Champagne coupe 3 White wine tulip glass 4 Innovations and novelties 5 References 6 External links

[edit] Champagne flute

The champagne flûte (fr. Flûte à Champagne) is a stem glass with a tall, narrow bowl. The bowl of a flute may resemble a narrow wine glass as seen in the illustration; or a trumpet shape; or be very narrow and straight-sided.

As with other stemware, the stem allows the drinker to hold the glass without affecting the temperature of the drink. The bowl is designed to retain champagne's signature carbonation, by reducing the surface area at the opening of the bowl. The flute has largely replaced the champagne coupe or saucer, the shape of which allowed carbonation to dissipate even more rapidly than from a standard wine glass. Its smaller diameter also allows more flutes to be carried on a tray.

Nucleation in a champagne glass helps form the bubbles seen in champagne. Too much nucleation will cause the carbonation to quickly fizzle out. A smoother surface area will produce fewer bubbles in the glass, and more bubble texture in the taster's mouth.

While most commonly used for sparkling wines, flutes are also used for certain beers, especially Belgian lambic and gueuze, which are brewed with wild yeast and often fruited. The tart flavor of these beers, coupled with their carbonation, makes them similar to sparkling white wines, and the champagne flute an ideal choice of glassware.

[edit] Champagne coupe

The champagne coupe or champagne saucer is the saucer-shaped stem glass once used for serving champagne, but now more commonly used for certain cocktails such as daiquiris.^[2] Legend has it the shape of the glass was modeled on the breast of Marie Antoinette, Joséphine de Beauharnais, Madame de Pompadour, or one of several other French aristocrats, although this is almost certainly false. The glass was designed especially for champagne in England in 1663, preceding those aristocrats by almost a century. ^[3]

The coupe has fallen out of fashion except for traditional occasions such as weddings.^[1] Modern aficionados consider it inappropriate for the current style of very dry champagnes, versus the sweeter champagnes popularized when the coupe came into fashion in the 1930s. Its broad surface area means that the champagne quickly loses its carbonation.

The coupe was popularized in post-Prohibition America at the Stork Club, where Champagne flowed freely and celebrities had bottles of Champagne sent to their tables, compliments of the house.

[edit] White wine tulip glass

Champagne is a white wine, and can be served in white wine glasses. Some oenophiles prefer this, particularly in a "tulip" or "belly" shape in which the rim of the glass is narrower than the midpoint, as it permits the drinker to get more of the aroma than a traditional flute, while still not having enough surface area to cause the champagne to quickly lose carbonation.^[1]

A flute must also be tipped at a severe angle in order to drink the bottom half of its contents, a problem which the tulip glass does not have.

[edit] Innovations and novelties

In the 1990s, double-wall stemware came into vogue for champagnes as well as other beverages. The inside and outside of the glass are separated by a small air gap to retard the transfer of heat from the drinker's hand to the drink. An additional novelty designed by Alissia Melka Teichroew and sold by the Museum of Modern Art came on the market in 2004, the "inside-out" double-wall glass in which the inner wall is molded in the traditional shape, but the outer wall is simply cylindrical. When filled, the color of the contents reveals the traditional shape.^[4]

Hollow-stem flutes are available as a novelty, though this style contradicts the purpose of serving wines in stemware at all, which is to avoid allowing the heat of the drinker's hand from warming the fluid. Another odd stem variation is the "baseless" champagne flute. The baseless flute is intended for use in sets of twos for ritual toasts, as at a wedding, or in sets of six or more at parties in which people are standing and circulating rather than seated. The solid stem is either clear or colored glass, but simply ends at the usual length without any sort of stable base and cannot be set down. Such glasses are meant to be presented in groups in a container resembling a wide drinking glass or miniature ice bucket, held until emptied, and then returned to the container with the others.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Flute, Tulip, or Coupe?, Oenophile Blog.
• How to Serve Champagne, IntoWine.Com